Book Review of Permanent Obscurity by Richard Perez

In reading Permanent Obscurity, I'm reminded of the proletariat novels of Charles Bukowski and other examples of "loser lit" like William Kotzwinkle's Fan Man. Like those novels, Permanent Obscurity features characters that seem in total opposition to the status quo.

Dolores and Serena can be described as two nonconformists, unable or unwilling to "get with the program" and lead ordinary lives. Instead, they imagine themselves as "artists" with a future of trying to buck the mainstream. All well and good if these two ladies had their act together; what's obvious from early on is that they don't.

Dolores is a photographer -- or was; Serena is a performer/lead singer -- or was. At 22, they both imagine themselves to be wash-outs, so they bolster themselves in any way they can: using drugs, drink, while desperately seeking a way to stay afloat while trying to avoid the 9-to-5 drudgery of a "normal" life.

In truth, Dolores and Serena are two young women with little or virtually no experience in the real world. Like teenagers, they live day-to-day, getting high when they can, cobbling together money from their temp jobs, etc. Serena, the performer, breaks into fetish filmmaking and modeling, and she takes Dolores into that world with her. And a seedy world it is.

Soon, finding themselves in debt to drug dealers, they plunge into a filmmaking project that (they imagine) will "save their lives": a fetish movie of sorts with Serena playing the lead part of dominatrix (a role she's particularly well-suited for).

How will things turn out? Delays and reversals mount gracefully, as the author builds suspense and an atmosphere of paranoia and danger. Will they manage to pull off this last scam, before a host of enraged drug dealers close in and exact revenge? The answer to that ends up being the second part climax (revisited in the final act), with Dolores and Serena plunged into a place darker than they imagined.

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